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CIT GAP Funds Invests in Villagize

02/29/2012

The Center for Innovative Technology (CIT) announced today an investment in Oakton, Va.-based Villagize, a social networking website that connects people in their local residential community.

Villagize allows individuals to send neighborhood messages, share regional news and events, interact with local businesses and form community groups. Built leveraging the Facebook platform, Villagize allows users to connect even if they are not Facebook friends. Villagize plans to add custom content that details events within the user’s neighborhood, such as local church and school group events, and regional news.

CIT President and CEO Pete Jobse said, “Villagize’s innovative social networking platform facilitates interactions with neighbors who, without this product, may have never spoken to one another. With CIT’s investment, Villagize will network neighborhoods and local businesses together, while also advancing the innovation market within the Commonwealth.”

Villagize’s CEO Gio Hunt said, “Our mission at Villagize is to build stronger local communities by enabling people to discover, connect, and share with their real-world neighbors and nearby friends. We want to make everyone’s neighborhood – everyone’s Village – a better place to live. And an essential step in making neighborhoods better is strengthening the relationships people share with one another at a local level.”

Since its 2005 launch, CIT GAP Funds has placed over 60 investments across the Commonwealth, deploying more than $5M of public funds and attracting more than $10 dollars of private funding for every $1 of public money invested. (For a list of portfolio companies, please visit the GAP Funds website.)